All Films

Early travelogue.

Short silent film where the word flower appears when two women trow flower petals on a tableau.

Korea, 1910s: documentary footage filmed in Seoul, at the now-destroyed site of Donuimun (the Great West Gate of the city), and the port of Chemulpo, present-day Incheon.

Travelogue about the 1909 expedition of Duke Luigi Amedeo of Italy to K2.

Pochoir-tinted intrigue between samurais in feudal Japan. Part of Pathé's “The Japanese Film” series, it was presumably shot in France with Japanese stage actors for the main roles. From the Guerra Zacarías collection.

A streetcar circulates in Tijoca, where tourists stroll along the edge of a waterfall, amidst tropical vegetation.

Two kids go sightseeing in Bruxelles.

A violinist touches the heart of a sick lady.

Short film involving sculptures

The construction and launch of the SS Olympic, the sister ship of the Titanic, at the Harland & Wolff shipyard in Belfast. Part of BFI collection "Tales From the Shipyard".

Documents how the poor people of Paris eat.

Crime drama about a postal employee for the railways who is falsely accused of theft after a robbery on a train. His wife finds out who the real culprit is.

Views in and around the islands of Venice, Italy.

The action of this story takes place on the frontier of Kentucky in 1800. Inside a stockade several settlers have their log cabin homes. The family with which we are concerned consists of a frontiersman, his wife and four children, the oldest, Tom, a boy of fourteen, the youngest a baby girl, Ruth. The children have a constant playmate in a magnificent collie dog called Shep. One day the father goes hunting with the other men of the settlement. In their anxiety to be early at the hunting ground they forget to close the gate of the stockade. At about this point the adventure which is portrayed in the picture begins. Ruth sees a favorable opportunity to investigate the region beyond the stockade, and, while her mother is in another part of the cabin and her older sister is busily engaged in poking the ashes in the open fireplace, she quietly walks out of the cabin door and on through the stockade and rambles off into the hills. On returning to the room the mother misses the child.

A French silent film directed by Louis Feuillade.

Tired men takes magic pills that make them overly energetic.

A young Native chief is sent to Washington to plead for justice after the fraudulent seizure of his people’s lands. Corrupt lobbyist Arthur Smighting plots to push the “Land Grab” bill through Congress, even enlisting his daughter to distract the chief with her charm. Though he presents his case, political trickery ensures the bill’s passage. Shamed, he returns to his people—until the daughter, realizing she loves him and regrets her role, brings proof to restore the tribe’s land and chooses to stay with him.

What would a vacation be for Titine without hellraising mischief? As a reward for receiving high marks at school, she goes on a peaceful jaunt to the countryside to visit her aunt and uncle. Naturally, she trips the gardener, futzes with her aunt’s expensive perfume, terrifies the cooks by levitating pots and pans (with hidden string!), enjoys a bacchanalian feast of grapes and sausage, and then jumps out the window. Her uncle banishes her with a stern warning for tyrannizing their idyllic home. But Léontine does not appear chastised.

A travel documentary on landscapes, which utilizes the phantom ride technique and which makes use of the momentum of shots taken with the camera mounted on moving vehicles. Each means of transport answers to differing rules in perceiving the scenario.

Léontine lights up our lives with an electric battery, electrocuting everyone in her path. Her victims include two old ladies (played by men in drag), dancers at a café, workers on a construction site, a group of lackluster conscripts, and the local police force. To add insult to injury, she douses everyone with buckets of water.

Clay pits were operative near Cefalù in the 1910s. This brief documentary shows us the different stages of the manufacturing process: from the hard job of extracting and transporting it to the artisan craftsmanship of the vase-makers and the artists decorating and painting the objects produced.

This exquisitely coloured film shows how tourists travelled around New Zealand in the early years of this century - by boat, horse and trap, and on foot through bush walks and onto a glacier.

The beautiful and flirtatious Duchess of Langeais has set her sights on General de Meyran, a straight and serious man, and manages to invite him to her place alone. When the General declares his love for her, the Duchess's friends, informed, burst in. The General, thus demeaned, leaves, swearing that he will never see her again. However, the Duchess, who had fallen in love with the General, writes him many letters asking for his forgiveness but nothing happened. Years pass. The General is called to Spain by Ferdinand VII. And while he visited a Carmelite convent in Formentera, he recognized the Duchess as one of the nuns. The same evening, he tries to abduct her, to unexpected consequences.